this week on 100 Films

First up this week at 100 Films in a Year, my latest TV round-up:




As well, 4 brand-new reviews were published this week:


Locke (2013)

“Tom Hardy goes for a drive and makes some phone calls” is the plot of this film, which is often mislabelled as a thriller. That’s not to degrade its thrillingness, but rather to say that if you’re expecting a single-location single-character phone-based thrill-ride... you’re not going to get it. In reality, Locke is a drama about a man dealing with some woes that are both everyday and life-changing, but as a film it’s been made in an unusual and interesting manner.

Read more here.


Maleficent (2014)

a revisionist re-telling of Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of its villainess... It's an interesting idea to take an archetypal villain who's evil for evil's sake and try to give her motivation, to understand why she did terrible things. Maleficent makes a fair fist of this

Read more here.


Super 8 (2011)

Before he started star warring and between bouts of star trekking, director J.J. Abrams teamed up with producer Steven Spielberg for this homage to the kind of movies Spielberg produced in the ’80s. Those films have endured down the decades; I’m not sure Super 8 endured as far as Abrams’ next lens flare showcase... Which is a little bit of a shame because, by being Abrams’ most personal film, it may also be his best.

Read more here.


Veronica Mars (2014)

There’s no denying that this is primarily a film for fans of the TV series — well, they did fund it, after all. The best way to get the most out of the film is to have watched all 64 episodes of the show first; preferably soon before, in fact, so you can remember who all the minor characters are. However, creator-cowriter-director Rob Thomas is no fool... [It's] accessible to neophyte viewers. You might sense there’s references and whatnot that are passing you by, but everything that’s relevant is explained.

Read more here.


Finally, my 100 Favourites series continued with 2 more posts:


For a Few Dollars More (1965)

The Man With No Name (who this time is called Monco) is played as coolly as ever by Clint Eastwood. This time he teams up with The Man In Black — not Johnny Cash, but Colonel Douglas Mortimer. Much older than Monco, but played with equal amounts of cool by Lee Van Cleef.

Read more here.


From Russia with Love (1964)

They may not be as grandiose as the volcano-dwelling types that came later in the series, but From Russia with Love has two of Bond’s most memorable adversaries: the hard former KGB officer Rosa Klebb, with her deadly shoe (well, it sounds silly when you put it like that), and assassin Red Grant, who may not know what wine to have with fish but could certainly gut you like one. A fish, that is. Not wine. You can’t gut wine.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.